Someone suggest H is having a MLC....I don't know?

[Queen_of_Swords]

I gave and I gave, I don't think there is much of me left to give, and what was given was discarded like so much trash, and I'm no Jesus Christ.

There is a thing called a losing battle. Unfortunately I'm not the only one that will not come away from this battle, win or lose, undamaged. Our children will too. When they reach adulthood they have the example of their Dad bailing. I cannot teach them how to be husbands or fathers.

Scylla, you are right, you can’t teach your children how to be husbands and fathers. However, you can teach them what it looks like to have love, respect, appreciation and acceptance of another human being. As well as of yourself.

How you handle this, will teach them how to handle this. IF you show them that you are damaged by this and that they SHOULD be damaged by this, then they will be.

IF you show them different, strength, perseverance, healing, then they will learn that there is nothing in this world that we can’t overcome. There may come a point where you show them that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, things do not go the way we want them to, and if you handle that well, they will as well.

Well my children will be enroled shortly in the same program as I am doing. Fortunately because they are young and their brains so plastic, this will be a shorter journey to age appropriate emotional maturity than mine is. My dysfunctional programming and garbage mind viruses will be addressed and they will not live them or pass them on to their children. That stops with me.

As far as teaching them, they've seen me change even more than H. has. They live with me, they live the changes.
I work with them as much as I am working with me. If one of us has a problem our family of now 3 has problem. I do for them and teach them how to do what I do for myself,

As for the H...same pattern. Errands, long drives, movies, eating out, ocmputer games, TV. That's generally his activity with the kids. From my POV he wants to be their buddy, not their father. Not that I blame him, he didn't have a real fatherly template to follow. The dysfunction on both his maternal/paternal lines runs very deep with much abuse and abandonment. Regardless, his relationship with the kids is his business. I'm not happy about it, he's cheating them and himself, but it IS his responsibility.

The book that you read about the effects of divorce, I read it too. It was very sad and I saw myself in parts of it (I am from a divorced family as well). It was one view. One study, and the common thread that I found in it, was the way that the parents handled things and their relationships or lack of with their children throughout the process and their lives. It doesn't have to be that way.

I am not saying this has not caused my S pain, however, I do not believe for one moment that this is going to scar him forever. It may, hopefully, give him a strength of character that his father did not seem to have. Because I have shown him that. He saw me at my lowest. He saw the devastation that I experienced (he is a teen and very observant). He has also seen how I continue to treat his father with compassion and kindness and caring. He has watched me rebuild myself and that I am so much happier and healthier and relaxed than I was when he was growing up.

As far as how much you gave, and I am not trying to pick on you, we all gave. You are not alone there.

However, did we give in the right way?

I didn’t.

I tried, I did the best with what I knew at the time, but there was so much that I could have done differently as a W. There is so much I could have done differently as a human. I was dealing with my own uneasiness in my own skin, my skewed ideas from my own upbringing as to what a M and family should be, how people should act, and I know that I could have done better.

After the bomb, I fell apart. I felt as you do. As I saw my role in the marital problems, I knew that I had some things to fix. And I gave more. I gave more of myself to me. H noticed the changes. While it didn’t make much of a difference in his crisis (it won’t), it did make a difference in our R. Because I give differently. Most days, we can get along pretty well now.

In my new R, I think I do pretty well most days. I give all of me, there is no hiding. It wasn't even something that I was really aware of because I had been being myself for so long by the time we met. I listen, try to make changes if they are necessary, and I also talk, often very clearly and other times, not so much, but things get worked through eventually. And if he needs to make changes, he does. Compromises. Agreeing to disagree sometimes (not often, but sometimes.) Patience, as much as we can and then more.

No one is asking you to change your core, but you really have to know WHO is at your core before you can say you aren’t going to change it. I thought I knew who was at my core. Boy was I wrong. The person I discovered, buried under a lifetime of stuff, is much more open and fun and willing than I ever would have imagined. And she is simple. And she is very happy with that.

I did the same. No one teaches us to be married and all those self help books are really helpful before and NOT after the crisis. Had I even known about the 5 Love Languages I could have done so much better. I gave him what I had been shown was love, but not always what he really needed or wanted. He spoke a different dialect and I had no template or program for it, and because of his stuff he couldn't/can't express his needs clearly or directly to me either.

As far as having needs met by others, is that what is important or would you prefer to wait and have those needs met by your H down the road?
I know that he says it is not going to happen, and it may not, but you really don’t know what is to come.

Of course I would prefer and love to have them met by him.
However, as I said in another post, he said to me in no uncertain terms he doesn't find me sexually attractive. Heck he can't look at me without that flat dead look in his eye or a certain level of distaste. That I mentioned my needs is what precipated the bomb being dropped as well. I mentioned (with my coach's approval) that there were things partners were entitled to in a marriage. Google Marriage Bill of Rights if you want to know. And I indicated that I would love for him to step up to the plate, but if he wasn't willing, I would seek to meet those needs elsewhere. If he doesn't want me, respect me, care about me, communicate with me, be honest with me....well, what's a gal to do?

You have to be able to take care of those needs, all of them, even sexual needs, alone before you can adequately have them met by ANYONE else. Women seem to have a harder time with the physical part of it than men. Any book about sexual dysfunction or sexual health will tell you that though. The purely physical part of it, I understand doesn’t necessarily meet the emotional fulfillment that comes with making love with someone, however, it is still a part of loving oneself.

Already have, for much too long in my estimation. It's like brushing your teeth, or bathing. Basic self -maintenence.

When we can truly love ourselves in all ways, it makes giving of oneself, really easy and natural, and it makes what we get from someone else, that much better. And it doesn’t feel like external validation. It feels like love.

I could never really "hear" much validation, when people would give it, I couldn't take it in or accept it.
I heard the criticismsand nit picking all too well. I won't go into to much personal detail here, but compliments, praise, kindness gave ( and at this time still gives) me great emotional pain ( although it is lessening).

The very thing most human beings crave and need, hurts me, at least until I can process it further and defuse it.